What Makes Kamala Run?
In the VIP backroom of Tosca Cafe, San Francisco’s timeless bohemian hangout, Bruce Springsteen and Sean Penn were playing a manly game of pool. The cranky proprietress, Jeannette Ether-edge, bodyguarded the door. Metallica’s Lars Ulrich slouched in, grieving over a crumbling marriage.
I’d seen this kind of overheated fiesta at Tosca before, but on this night in 2004 there was also a quiet presence. Practically hidden in the choking pall of tobacco and celebrity, a young woman was perched on a bar stool watching the game, waiting, calculating. She was almost sedate, nursing a glass of wine and smoking cigarettes while others rubbernecked The Boss and the mercurial Penn.
The quiet observer was Kamala Harris, the woman whom many now think is an odds-on favorite to be President of the United States. But on this night, she was a political rookie, barely a year into her first term as San Francisco district attorney: focused, reserved, undistracted, emotions in check. And mysterious.
Back then, early in her political career, she often seemed low-key. At fundraisers, she spoke well enough but stiffly, without passion, reading off three-by-five index cards and asking anxiously afterward how she’d done. She seemed like just one of several local next-gen Democrats. But privately, always privately, she may have had other ideas. Could she conquer her feelings of vulnerability and open herself more to a sea of voters?
THE UBIQUITOUS CONTENDER
Fast forward. Today, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris is a powerful political force, locally and nationally. There is no hiding for her or from her. She’s a regular on every cable news channel — except maybe Fox. She’s a staple
